Bored With the Rings

All right, I am a heretic. I am about to commit blasphemy. I shall engage in an act which will have many questioning my sanity, or at least my taste. So be it.

"LOTR: The Two Towers" sucks.

All right, I understand that middle films in any trilogy have a hard road to hew. Fine. If that's the nature of the product, then the producers of that product know that going in and should act accordingly. In other words, they should make a product that is superior to the first, and maybe even the third. In contrast to that lofty ideal, "The Two Towers" is lacking. It is just more of the same from "The Fellowship of the Ring," no less and absolutely no more. No more plot, no more development, no more interesting. Ugh. It is a big, huge, string of "zzzzzzzz."

This has really bugged me because people whose opinions I respect have raved about this film. They love it. I hate it. Where does this disconnect come from? When I saw it on The Big Screen, I walked away going, for the first time ever, "Can I have those three hours of my life back?" I have seen some absolutely shitty films and I have never felt like watching them was such a complete waste of time.

Does anything happen in "The Two Towers"? If anything does, I missed it. I've watched it again on DVD. I'm still missing it. It's beautifully photographed, gorgeously rendered, lovingly assembled...and a whole string of other "ly" words apply to its technical construction.

BUT!

The plot moved forward not one smidgen. Precisely two things sorta happened. You got to see that Gollum has A Good Side. Gosh, how sweet. Only by film's end he's precisely back where he started at film's start. He's an annoying little prick who wants his precious, and is plotting the ugly demise of Frodo in order to get it.

The other item were those walking tree critters who aren't trees. They were cool. I have heard they're not in the book. That would explain why they are cool. And if they are in the book, well at least this is a great rendition.

The tree dudes point out one of the biggest issues I have with the film, though. Namely, they are all, storming the evil tower, stomping (literally) orc ass. Then someone utters, "Release the river!" Where in the hell did that dam come from? I don't remember that in the first film, and I looked for it in the scenes leading up to this climax in the second film. It just sort of, "poof," appears and drowns all sorts of bad guy mischief. Deus ex machina? "And suddenly I dreamed I had a phaser...."

But really, where's the plot? Years and years ago I tried to read these books and I just for tired of reading about people walking around, smoking pipes, eating food, walking around, sulking, walking around, eating food, pining for the fjords, walking around, drinking and eating, talking, thinking, feeling gloomy, and....

Oh hell, you get the idea.

There are those among you who adore such things. I am not of you. I prefer a book, a story, driven by plot. I'm not picky about the plot. I'm not even a stickler for the speed at which the plot unfolds, unravels, or otherwise meanders. I just want a plot. Well, usually. I'm not consistent. This weekend, after sleeping through "The Two Towers," I watched the newly released Fosse wonderwork "All That Jazz." Does it have a plot? Well, sorta, but it's driven by characters. Would that this had been true of "The Two Towers."

Personally I've already decided that after "The Return of the King," when all three are wrapped up into a DVD set, you could pull "The Two Towers" out of the boxed set and never miss it. Unless you were some sort of Tolkien freak. But then again, you're already screaming about Peter Jackson's alterations, the bastard.

UPDATE:

I forgot to mention that decent mid-trilogy films do exist. "The Empire Strikes Back", in addition to being the best of the original three films, demonstrates what a mid-trilogy film can do. Characters evolved, they changed. Situations changed. The Plot Unfolded. Etc.

From what I have been told, "The Matrix: Reloaded" does the same. (I missed it at the theatres, and thus must wait until October 14 for the DVD to know for sure.) All complaints about the film aside, it moved the plot along. Things were different at the end than they were at the beginning.

In other words, both of these mid-trilogy films did what "The Two Towers" didn't.